The Crow
by LovingTheOgre
Summary: People believed that when someone died a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead but sometimes something bad happens a terrible sadness is carried with the soul, it cant rest, sometimes the crow brings that soul back to make the wrong things right
1. Introduction Death

The Crow

Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hop you enjoy it.

_**People once believed that when someone dies a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead.**_

**_But sometimes something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul cant rest and sometimes…sometimes the crow can bring that soul back to make the wrong things right._**

A clock hung in the corner of the dingy police station ticks by making a noise that is louder then normal.

_Tic_

_Toc_

_Tic_

_Toc_

People walked by the closed office door softly trying not to disturb the girl inside sitting against the old dusty couch breathing in the coffee and cigarette filled air, she tastes it on her tongue as well considering that she had been the one smoking and drinking coffee.

She was sixteen and it was illegal to do so but she'd just found her sister and cousin dead in their apartment so they'd decided to let it slide.

Technically she hadn't found them both seeing as she had just arrived to find her beaten and bloodied sister being taken into an ambulance and seeing her sisters fiancée and cousin lying bloodied and dead on the street with glass shards stuck to him and around him from the window of the apartment where he'd been thrown off.

She shivered upon remembering his placid dead face covered in blood.

"Ms. Hyuuga?"

She looked up at see the familiar face of her sisters friend Sasuke Uchiha wearing what she considered the normal standard of what a police detective would wear. A white blouse covered by a tan coat and black pants stained with coffee drops, sweat and whatever else fell onto them.

"There's no need for the Hyuuga crap Sasuke. Just call me Hanabi." The girl said coolly as though she hadn't just witnessed her cousin dead and sister dying. "How is Hinata?"

The young detective sighed and shut the wooden door behind him leaning against it regarding the young girl. Her eyes were red from crying he guessed and he had to wonder what she might be thinking at the moment though he thought, slightly amused, he wouldn't be able to understand her at all as she was quite odd, quite strange, quite Goth.

"Hinata is gone." He said with no trace of emotion. He figured being upfront and straight to the point would be more accurate with the young Hyuuga and he knew he was right by the calm sigh she made before lighting up another cigarette.

"Was it painful?"

He shook his head.

"No, she died quickly."

It was an obvious lie but one that at the moment she decided to believe as she leaned back onto the couch and stared at the loudly ticking clock getting lost in it's cacophony.

"Neji's dead too." She stated as though she'd just realized his death. "Fallen from the window with glass stuck to his body and brains splattered all over 57th street like red and pink mixed paint."

Sasuke said nothing.

"And sister was bruised and bloody…Sasuke?"

"Hn?"

"Was she raped?"

He didn't reply but he knew the answer.

"I thought so…poor Hinata…poor Neji." She said taking a long drag, the ashes becoming longer and Sasuke, for lack of saying anything, concentrated on the grayish blue color of the ashes and the smoke that left her nostrils and mouth like smoke coming from a volcano. "I was on my way to the apartment to look at the wedding dress, I suppose I was lucky that the traffic was lousy huh?"

"Hn."

They were silent for a while until Hanabi fell into a dreamless sleep by the lullaby of the loud clock. Sasuke moved to his desk quietly sitting on the worn chair staring at the brown haired girl clad in black lacey dress and black combat boots. Her attire, however comfortable to her was not something one should wear during the winter in Konoha. He shook his head cursing himself for thinking of her strange attire rather then the fact that two of his childhood friends were murdered just a few hours ago.

"Damn."

He picked up the graying phone that sat on the paper cluttered desk and dialed a number to his wife to let her know not to expect him home anytime soon and to deliver the news that their friends were dead.

_'Uchiha residence.'_

"TenTen it's me." He said in monotone.

_'Hey Sasuke, what's up? You coming home?'_ He could feel her smile into the phone.

"Something happened."

There was a pause on the phone.

_'Who?'_

"Hinata and Neji."

He could hear her cry on the other line and the phone that she carried made a thump against her chest or the floor he couldn't tell.

He hated it when he had to go to the residences of a person and tell someone that their husband, wife, parent or child was dead…and now that he began to deliver the news to his wife it didn't feel any easier.

Not one bit.


	2. Within the Earth

**-----------------------------------------The Crow--------------------------------------------------**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hop you enjoy it.**

Hanabi stood beside her father staring at the grave of her sister and cousin, newly buried in their holes within the earth. She swiped at the lose brown hairs that fell onto her brow in annoyance. It was windy in Konoha, dim and grey with the promise of rain, the perfect weather for two funerals.

"Hinata and Neji loved one another very much…" The priest said sadly.

Hanabi had to agree.

"..though the union between them both was sinful perhaps they can be forgiven…"

After this was said her mind wandered to the grey tombstone with her sisters name carved into it. It was plain, she thought, plane and exactly what Hinata would have wanted.

She shuddered at the thought of her sister buried beneath the ground in the cold earth, rotting away into nothing.

Her white eyes wandered to her cousins grave, also plain, and she sadly smiled. It was a sadistic thought but she was glad that the two were at least together in death, for if Hinata would have died and not Neji, he would have followed soon after, that was how much they loved one another.

"How you convinced me to allow my daughter to be buried beside her lover I will never know." Her father said beside her drawing her attention on the living rather then the sadistic yet darkly romantic thoughts of her sister and her cousin beginning to be together in eternity in heaven and rotting away beside one another in the earth.

"It was the right thing Father." She simply stated.

"It's sinful."

"It's love."

At that he shut his mouth and walked away with the rest of the people around them, family were only there to show their respects to the Hyuuga clan leader and future heiress, they didn't care that the prodigy of the clan was dead along with their former heiress.

Their friends on the other hand were grieving for the lives lost like she was.

"Hanabi?"

For her shy sister whom was violated in front of the man she loved.

"Hanabi?"

Of the brave and strong man her cousin was, being pushed to his death from the window of his home hearing his fiancée scream in terror.

"Hanabi Hyuuga!"

Her thoughts turned to the blonde at her side staring into her pale eyes. He wore a look of concern and sadness though he tried to cover his grief by smiling goofily at her.

"I've gotten your attention."

She nodded.

"Yes, I'm sorry Naruto."

"Don't be." He sighed loudly still resting his arm on her shoulder. He loosened his tie a bit. "I heard from Sasuke that you saw them."

She nodded.

"Neji was already gone when I came up and Hinata was being put into the ambulance."

He nodded listening intently.

"She held my hand…and asked about Neji but I knew that she knew…she wished me well and said_ 'I'll be seeing you little sister'_ and then they took her away."

"Sakura was there when she died."

Hanabi nodded.

"I figured she would be…I must have been so painful."

The wind blew coldly against their skin and a cloud above began to rain, yet they stood there staring at nothing only being comforted by each other. The trees in the cemetery whooshed and moaned around them as tears from the sky rolled down the stones bearing the names of those now dead.

_Hinata Hyuuga_

_Neji Hyuuga_


	3. Awakening after a year of slumber

**-----------------------------------------The Crow--------------------------------------------------**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hop you enjoy it.**

I rained on the small cemetery that was nestled behind the Victorian styled church and hill behind it.

Darkness shrouded over it in a blanket of black, the street lamps not to far away casting eerie shadows upon the various tombstones and overgrown rotting grass and molded plants left forgotten by visitors that hadn't returned.

Two lonely stones, covered in rain water and newly bought flowers stood side by side, the lovers buried beneath them still and cold as a year had passed since their deaths, the lovers deaths.

_Caw_

_Caw_

_  
Caw_

A sound, strange sound broke through the silent barrier of the cemetery. A bird with ink black wings and dark black eyes perched upon the stone of one of the lovers.

_Caw_

_Caw_

_Caw_

For a moment there was silence until the sky crackled loudly with thunder and lightning and then the ground began to shift, slightly then suddenly a hand broke through the earth. Pale, dirty, new and alive.

For seconds that felt like hours slipping into decades the hand was joined by another, pulling the being trapped beneath the cold wet dirt to the surface. He fell onto his back taking gulps of cold wet air into his burning lungs taking in the feel of the cold water on his face and tattered clothes and body.

"**AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**!!!!!!!" He yelled into the sky breaking the silence. "Oh God why?"

He was met with no answers, rain water falling onto his form, the dirt beneath his nails, the mud smeared onto his pale cold face.

He knew it was wrong.

He wasn't supposed to be alive.

He breathed deeply again savoring what he'd taken for granted when he lived before, the sweet aroma of rain and dirt, savoring the air in his lungs.

"Hinata?" his voice cracked at he leaned on his side then pushed himself into a kneeling position. He stared at the stone to his left. "No no no…"

It read _Hinata Hyuuga_.

Too terror filled to think of anything else he inched away from it sitting beside the hole in the ground he had crawled from.

_The hole in the ground?_

Only then, staring at that hole, like a black abyss, only then did he realize to look up, to look at the stone in front of him.

His blurry eyes widened and he let out another scream The stone read _Neji_ _Hyuuga_.

His own name.


	4. Ghost in Black

**-----------------------------------------The Crow--------------------------------------------------**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hop you enjoy it.**

His legs wobbled at first when he stood for the first time n one year since his death. It didn't take him too long to walk then jog then run at full sprint.

He wasn't a prodigy for nothing.

Moving past house after house, building after building, he didn't take the time to really look at his surrounding as he only had one destination to go.

His old home.

After running for a half an hour he stopped in front of the now abandoned apartment building.

The air in his lungs stung, he was shivering, freezing.

He broke the door down of the entrance and made his way up the stairs to the top floor, this his old apartment, each step painful and liberating at the same time. He was alive, living real.

He wasn't too surprised to find yellow police tape on the door or the fact that it was unlocked. He broke the tape away letting it fall like ribbons to the ground in a heap, letting himself into a place no longer warm and cozy but distant, cold and oddly new.

From in front of the door, across the small apartment he could see the large round window broken, to he left the small kitchen with dirty dishes from one year ago still there and farther to the left the bedroom door opened and messy.

Dust covered and unused.

He wondered oddly, why their things had not been removed after the deaths and wished they had been.

Suddenly his mind was met with horrible things, flashes of smiles, Hinata smiling at him holding their kitten Chamka, Hinata at the stove cooking his meal, Hinata lying beneath him all blushes and smiles.

Hinata crying

Hinata bleeding

Hinata dying

Suddenly he saw faces of dirty men, foul smelling, eyes narrowed, touching her, hitting her.

His fists tightened.

Beating him in front of her finally throwing him out of the window, glass tearing into his skin, falling and the last thing he heard was Hinata voice.

'_**Neji!!!**'_

He clutched his head, brown hair falling into his face. The pain, so much pain, it were as though he carried hers as well. He could see her in her last moments.

In a hospital bed.

Wires everywhere.

Staring at the doctors.

Sakura smoothing back her hair and whispering calm words into her ear.

30 hours of pain, suffering and loneliness she went through, 30 hours spent without him and finally at the end of 30 hours she breathed her last breath.

'_Neji…'_

He lied on the dirty wooden floors, curled into the fetal position a crying dirty mess. His tears loud in his own ears.

"I should be dead."

With the thought of death he pushed himself up and made his way into the bathroom, wiping away at the mirror he stared at his reflection.

The caged bird seal was gone.

"I was dead…what am I now?"

Again he was met with nothing as he pushed out of the bathroom and towards the broken window, staring down at the ground he remembered dying on.

_'Neji.'_ Hinata's voice filled his mind again as he pushed his way to the bed room and to the dresser. He needed to change, he needed to rid himself of the smell of death caught on him.

The mirror seemed to make him feel more at peace as he stared at his own reflection in the mirror, wearing clothes that Hanabi had bought him for his birthday leather and black, what he often never wore but now felt the most comfortable in.

He pulled on the coat.

"Something's missing…"

Not knowing why, he went to the vanity and found white powder, white makeup. He took it into his hands and smeared it on his pale face, next he moved to black, smearing it on his eyes making lines run vertically down and black on hips lips and making a twisted mocking grin.

"…"

_Caw_

_Caw_

_Caw_

The bird from before came into the apartment from the broken window waiting for him and at the moment he saw it he understood.

He had to make things right.

To fix the wrongs done to him and to his love.

To kill the ones who killed him.


	5. Center of the City

**-----------------------------------------The Crow--------------------------------------------------**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hope you enjoy it.**

"Nothing yet?" Naruto asked from behind the counter of the Konoha bar. He'd began to come more often after the deaths when he and Sasuke were tired of a long days work and saddened by empty hands.

"Nothing…no witnesses nor prints." Sasuke downed his glass. "I'm getting pretty tired you know, of looking when it feels like there's no hope."

"Don't say that."

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"It's easy for the Hokage to have endless faith huh, but I'm just a civil servant sworn to avenge the wickedness done on others." He made a mocking bow. "I cant even find our friends murderers so what does that say?"

Naruto said nothing.

"I see that you are speechless."

"I see that you are drunk."

Kakashi, from his position in the far corner reading his pervert book just sighed inwardly at the exchange of words. Working on the case with Sasuke was tiring and he could understand what the boy meant yet he'd not lost hope yet so why had Sasuke? He rolled his visible eye.

It wasn't that he himself was a detective per say, **ANBU** was higher up, working just for the Hokage and his wishes not necessarily for the public unless ordered to. When he'd heard about the death of Hinata and Neji he was saddened by it of course but not as much as the others. He wasn't close to either of them.

"You seem to be within deep thought."

Turning his head only slightly, more terrified then anything else, his eye landed on a man he thought dead.

"who are you?"

The man with white painted face with black around his eyes and mouth smirked and sat behind him, hiding in the shadows from the blonde and brunette at the bar.

"You know very well who I am Kakashi…I need your help."

"Why me?"

"Because out of all the others you are the one with a clam head."

Kakashi sighed.

"How are you alive Neji? I saw the autopsy report and your mangled body."

Neji thought briefly for a moment.

"I don't know."

"Well what do you want to know?"

"I want to know about Hinata…how did she pass?"

He knew the answer of course yet he wanted it to be wrong. He wanted her to have died quickly with no pain. His pale hands rested on the cold surface of the table in front of him as he decided to turned towards it. The muggy air r the bar smelled of cigars and liquor and sweat of men who worked to hard.

For a moment he considered buying a drink, just for the strong taste of anything. Tequila perhaps, strong and warm in his belly filling his mind with dizzying thoughts and making everything fade.

He ordered the drink.

"Are the dead able to taste anything?"

He turned to Kakashi.

"It's like I'm living Kakashi."

"A ghost or zombie?"

"I'm not sure."

When the drink arrived, with salt and lemon, he smiled to himself.

"Here is to my health."

"Touché."

He licked the salt from his wrist, took the shot, and sucked the lemon hard enjoying the three tastes of each intermingling and the way the liquor burned on it's way down to his empty belly.

"Just like I had hoped."

Kakashi nodded.

"Perhaps we should excuse ourselves…the bar tender in staring at you, I think he recognizes you."

Neji smirked.

"Or perhaps the makeup startled him."

"That too."

The two men slinked from the bar walking into the cold streets of Briskly street. The night air was cooling on their faces and yet Neji almost retched at the scent of foul things like the garbage and smoke. He hadn't gotten used to breathing again yet and sometimes smells would overwhelm him much to his dismay.

"It filthy."

Kakashi nodded.

"It's always been this way."

They headed down the road to where Kakashi had parked his car near and abandoned building covered in graffiti. It smelled to Neji, oddly like flowers and urine.

"Wasn't this Ino's flower shop?"

Kakashi nodded.

"Yes, though for months it's been empty."

"What happened?"

"It was broken into."

Neji's white eyes landed on the place and he vaguely remembered coming here once to pick out a bouquet of flowers for Hinata. He remembered how Ino asked various question about how he felt for his love while she looked about and picked each flower and smiled as she presented him with the ultimate love bouquet.

"It's a shame."

They climbed into the old silver Chevy and drove off to where Neji assumed was the older mans home. Neither spoke.

Neji stared out of the window and watched as the scenery changed as Kakashi drove father from the center of the city. From stone and metal and decadence and poverty it changed to normal clean streets, grass and trees.

"It's lovely out here isn't it?"

Kakashi nodded.

"That's why I never moved from home…It would be more convenient to live in the center of the city but I love it out here so the hour drive isn't so bad."

"You never answered my question."

"I know."

"Will you do it now?"

There was a brief pause before Kakashi spoke.

"3o hours." Was all he said and Neji understood.

**Sera: I don't like this one that much. Comment review please!!!!!**


	6. Studio Sanctuary

**-----------------------------------------The Crow--------------------------------------------------**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the show nor the movie. I thought this up while watching the movie last night and well it kinda clicked. I hope you enjoy it.**

30 hours.

It rang in Neji's ear for what seemed like an eternity as the car passed by trees and street lamps continuing on it's destination to the ANBU's home.

He had known already how she left the world but hearing it from another, the confirmation of it had sent his mind reeling.

She was really dead.

Hinata was really dead.

This wasn't a bad dream.

----

Hanabi Hyuuga's fingers tapped impatiently against the wooden desk in front of her, the light from the computer screen casting eerie shadows on her face as she sighed in annoyance.

She had been writing a sort of book about her sisters life, about Neji leading to their tragic deaths.

"Are you still writing?"

She turned her head towards the warm voice and smiled sadly shrugging her shoulders.

"Yeah, I'm having trouble though."

Shikamaru Nara shifted in the bed slightly, staring at his ceiling. His dark eyes lazily trailing to the young girl then back to the ceiling.

"You're a troublesome girl…shut it off."

She smiled.

"Want me to come to bed already?"

"Stop being stupid Hanabi…I've got to get up early, I have a job, remember?"

"Oh yeah, that teaching gig." She sighed. "Neji worked with you didn't he?"

He nodded.

"That he did. By the way, your father doesn't know that you're here does he?"

She shook her head.

"No, he thinks that I'm with Ten Ten and Sasuke."

"Really? When was the last time you saw them?"

She stood and stretched.

"Not since the funerals I think. Almost a year ago I suppose."

He rolled his dark eyes and sat up, taking a pillow and sheet with him as he made his way to the other side of the room to the small pull out couch.

"You know, I really should get an apartment and leave this studio behind. I don't have enough room for two people in here."

"Naw, it's all good. I think I'll be staying at home more often." She walked towards the large window the stood beside the bed and looked out into the dingy and dirty streets of Konoha. Police cars going with their sirens blaring. Dirt and grime and filth and disgust…that was where she lived, this was the place that had killed her sister and cousin.

It consumed her with hatred.

"So you wont be staying with me then? I guess things eventually have to go back to normal again huh?" Shikamaru asked from the couch he was currently lying on. He didn't look at her, his eyes concentrated on the piece of art she had recently given him.

"Yeah I guess."

He half listened to her as his eyes wandered to the portrait.

A giant black bird.

A crow.

---

_'Neji.'_

His eyes opened wide, staring at the ceiling of his apartment where he and Hinata lived for so long. He sat up, slowly, not believing that he was back at this place. The red sheets falling to his lap.

_'I'm…home?'_

He stood up from the bed and made his way out of the bedroom, each step heavy and unreal. He looked towards the window in which he had fallen from. A figure stood with it's back towards him, staring from the window where the sun shone brightly.

White light that seemed unreal in it's radiance that Neji had to shield his eyes from it as he looked on at the figure standing there.

_'Who are you?'_ He asked the figure, feeling heavy, nauseating as though he should know the figure…

_'Neji…'_ The figure said with a soft sigh, almost sad and so very far away.

The figure turned slowly, and his eyes widened at her beauty.

_'Hinata?'_ He tried to go to her but his legs would not carry him.

_'Neji…we'll be together again…hurry.'_

His alabaster eyes opened to the sound of birds singing outside the window.

"A dream…it was just a dream."

Caw

Caw

Caw

The sound made his heart sink.

He was not meant to be here resting.

He had unfinished business to attend to.


End file.
